Tag Archives: National Park Service

The National Park Service is undertaking an effort to identify appropriate sites for commemorating and interpreting the history of Reconstruction. Two participants in the study note that, as of now, the NPS “has not a single site dedicated to that vital and controversial period.”

There’s no denying that Reconstruction is a critically important period that doesn’t get much public attention. The issues Americans grappled with during Reconstruction are both fundamental and timely. As the article notes, they include “debates over the meaning of equal protection of the law, over the right to vote, and over the limits of presidential and congressional authority, both in peacetime and in war.”

Over the years, especially during the sesquicentennial, I’ve heard a lot of people bemoan the fact that the Civil War gets a lot more attention than the messy, unglamorous period that followed it. The drama of the war years has a lot more inherent sex appeal than Reconstruction. And Appomattox provides a kind of narrative closure that you don’t get with the unfinished business of the 1870s.

But I submit that it’s not just the prejudices of popular memory that have given us so many Civil War parks without a single Reconstruction one. The thing about agencies that are charged with preserving and interpreting historic sites is that they’re inevitably going to devote most of their resources to those aspects of history linked to specific points on a map. This is not a shortcoming of such agencies; it’s just a by-product of what they’re set up to do.

Wars, after all, tend to turn ordinary pieces of ground into battlefields, and battlefields are the kinds of historic sites that are naturally suited to preservation, interpretation, and commemoration. There were plenty of Reconstruction-era developments that were as significant to American history as the Battle of Shiloh, but it’s harder to find sites associated with those developments that you can point to and be able to say, “This is where it happened.”

I can’t think of too many locations where you could tell the Reconstruction story in a holistic fashion, along the lines of the comprehensive approach to the Civil War you get at the new Gettysburg visitor center. One such site would be Andrew Johnson’s home in Greeneville, TN, which is already under NPS stewardship. The site of the Colfax Massacre might be another ideal location, but I don’t know how much is left there to preserve and interpret.

Ultimately, I think the fact that there’s been no Reconstruction national park until now has as much to do with these practical issues as it does with Americans’ predilection for forgetting the messy and discouraging chapters of their history. The NPS isn’t an all-purpose historical interpretation agency. Its historical activities are linked to places, and some events are just naturally more suited to this sort of location-specific interpretation than others.

Southeast Regional Director Stan Austin announced that four National Park units in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia will begin to consolidate operations on or about September 1. The four units represent significant stories of the American Revolution in the southern United States.

“This action will ensure financial sustainability, provide more efficient use of resources, and help these parks to better serve the visiting public,” Austin said. “The units share historic backgrounds, missions and geographic proximity, and this provides an opportunity to share employees who perform identical or similar functions at each of the parks.”

Kings Mountain National Military Park, Cowpens National Battlefield, and Ninety Six National Historic Site are located in South Carolina. Overmountain Victory Trail spans parts of Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. As part of the National Trails Program, it is a partnership entity and does not own land.

The four units will be formed into a “group” under one general superintendent who will manage all four units. The National Park Service has begun the hiring process for a general superintendent. It is expected that the position will be filled by September 1, and the new superintendent will begin the process of combining park functions. The new superintendent will also be responsible to promote the individual identity of each park and build coalitions within each of the parks’ surrounding communities. It has not yet been determined where the new superintendent will be stationed, but it will be at one of the three existing park units.

It’s a move that makes sense, I think. KMNMP and the OVT are inseparably intertwined, Cowpens is one of the stops on the trail, and Ninety Six in the same general neck of the woods. I just hope this isn’t a sign that any of these parks are having major financial trouble and needing to cut back on operations.

Meanwhile, Historic Brattonsville has unveiled some big changes at the site of Huck’s Defeat (or the Battle of Williamson’s Plantation, if you prefer):

The new quarter-mile gravel trail, which is part of the attraction, features a series of interpretive kiosks that illustrate the details of the battle and tell the story of the Williamson and Bratton families.…

Lynch [no relation to yours truly] said a wood frame has been erected at the site where the Williamson home stood. Painted cutouts of soldiers representing the British and American forces have been placed on the battle field to illustrate what happened, he said.

The CHM also commissioned Charlotte painters Don Troiani and Dan Nance to visually capture the story of the Battle of Huck’s Defeat.

Seven original paintings will be on display in Brattonsville’s Visitors Center during the opening weekend festivities. Prints of the artwork will be sold year-round. Nance will be on hand to sign prints both days, Lynch said.

Lynch said the Visitors Center will also feature a new 14-minute documentary that will help visitors understand the events that played out during Huck’s Defeat.

“It enriches the experience,” Lynch said. “You have the battlefield trail and the video you can watch to augment the experience.”

When I visited Historic Brattonsville a few years ago there was a trail to the battleground and a short pre-recorded narration, but it’s great to see that they’re telling the story more fully. If you haven’t been to HB, I heartily recommend it. It’s a wonderful place to learn about the early South Carolina backcountry.

Arcadia Publishing has just published two photographic histories of the Cumberland Gap region for their popular Images of America series, and it just so happens that friends of mine wrote both of them.

Natalie Sweet’s book covers the towns of Harrogate and Cumberland Gap, TN. Harrogate has an unusual story for a small community; in the late 1800s a British industrialist founded a swanky resort there, which hosted some of the richest people in the country for just a short while before financial reverses brought down the whole enterprise. Natalie will be signing copies at the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum on the campus of Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate on February 18 from 2:00 to 5:00 P.M.

I worked with Natalie and Martha at LMU’s Lincoln museum, and they’re darn good at doing history. If you’re interested in Appalachia or the history of the National Park Service, these books should be well worth a look.

A 23-year-old Springfield man faces federal criminal charges after he was arrested in the basement of the Lincoln Home early Saturday.

Springfield police and National Park Service rangers said Jordan L. Clark, of the 800 block of North Sixth Street, might have been attempting to steal copper wire from the heating and air conditioning system.

Damage was estimated at $500 to $1,000.

Police say Clark appeared to be under the influence when he threw a brick through the basement window and crawled inside about 1:20 a.m. Saturday.

No word on whether the homeowner, a local lawyer and former state representative, was inside the residence at the time. Neighbors do report, however, that he earned a reputation as an amateur wrestler in his youth, and probably could have held his own until police arrived.

Tomorrow after lunch I’m going to swing by Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, check out the books in the visitor center, take in the view from the Pinnacle, maybe stretch my legs a little on the Sugar Run Trail.

From my local paper: “Gateway communities across the country see about $76 million per day in total sales from visitor spending that is lost during a government shutdown. Visitors spend about $44,000,000 a year in the communities around Cumberland Gap NHP.”